The Way We Live Now: 5-23-99: Questions for Joan Chen; The Revolution of Little Girls

By Melanie Rehak

Published: May 23, 1999

Q: Your new film, ''Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl,'' focuses on the plight of children during the Chinese Cultural Revolution in China. What was life like for you during those years?

The Cultural Revolution started in 1966, when I was 5, and from 1967 to 1977, more than 10 million children were ''sent down'' to remote areas like Tibet and Mongolia to help build socialism. Later on, we all learned that it was to relieve the city of unemployment, and stories came back about how horrible it was. It involved everybody's child -- everyone. So it was better if you volunteered. Otherwise they dragged you out.

How did you avoid that fate?

In my first year of high school, I was picked to go to the film studio, which was very, very rare. Mao's wife planned to do three movies about the Long March, and she had to personally approve all the cast. I was proud to be doing propaganda, to be of use to the Communist cause.

Movie star - that's a very unusual exemption. Was the kind of celebrity that you eventually achieved difficult for a believer in the group cause?

I was very young and pure, and I didn't enjoy fame. I would be on a street in any city, and there would be thousands of people falling down hurting themselves, crowding me, their bicycles all trampled, and I wouldn't be able to get out. That scared me. Really, I wanted to be a parachuter.

A parachuter? Why did that appeal to you?

The uniforms looked so handsome, and the female uniform actually had a waistline. Ordinarily we weren't allowed to have a waistline. In school, our outfits didn't show our shapes. When you have no physical appearance of being a woman, you seem to have less vulnerability. And we were taught that we shouldn't behave any differently than the boys.

But clearly, you also learned how to act in a way that's not boyish at all.

I had to learn a whole new set of things after I came to America and got parts in ''Tai-Pai'' and ''The Last Emperor.'' I knew there was one version of Chineseness that America wanted from me: exotic, slant-eyed, long-haired, sexy, vulnerable China doll. I was eager to adapt and conform. I regret that.

Your screen-siren femininity got you places, though. Was it a greater source of strength than the androgyny you were taught back in China?

I've learned that I could combine these two things. When I was directing this movie, I had to command a crew of 60 that consisted mostly of men. So I tried to see what was most effective: should I be straightforward or should I be coy? Sometimes batting your lashes works. I had to recognize feminine power; now it's good because I have both faces.

What about the other, more ideological aspects of your Chinese upbringing? What lessons have they given you for your current life in America?

It instilled in me an appetite for something intangible, spiritual and grander outside of the practical pursuit of self-interest. That's what drives me to make films. I'm actually extremely comfortable materially. I feel very rich; I don't need any more. It's the other side of me that's hungry. From getting an idea to completing this film to talking with you was obstacle after obstacle after obstacle. I think without that drive, that spiritual need to tell a meaningful story, I would not have been able to do it.

Do you think that whatever keeps you from losing yourself to materialism will also keep China from losing itself in American capitalism?

It seems to spread so easily in China. They're quite brand-oriented, more so than America. The younger generation saves up for a month to buy Chanel lipsticks and cosmetics. I'm grateful that my Communist upbringing has taught me how to enjoy myself in a less materialistic way. But the new generation seems to embrace materialism quite easily.

But for all your patriotism, you were denied a permit to film in China. You ended up filming it illegally. Did you know it would be that hard?

I didn't think that far. I just wanted to pay tribute to a land and a culture that I came from. But my fame hurt me, in a way. If I was caught, I'd be punished a little more strictly -- just to show, because I'm a known figure.

Are such painful homecomings a familiar part of your cross-cultural life?

There are times when I feel like a bastard everywhere I go. Every time there's tension between China and the U.S. I get scared that I won't be trusted by either. But most times I feel fortunate that I could be in both places and learn both cultures. I do miss the real texture of China, but it's good to have something to miss. Melanie Rehak